


kiss me, dammit!

by badwolv



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: AU where both Max and Victoria survived the Dark Room, Alternate Universe - College/University, And things get /Spicy/, Angst and Smut, F/F, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Vic and Max meet at a college house party, Victoria POV, chasefield
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-14 01:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18043244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolv/pseuds/badwolv
Summary: Oh, how strange the temptations are when Victoria is heartbroken, inebriated, and dressed to kill at a college party. Maybe Max isn't supposed to be the person whose hand she should be tugging, weaving between the swarm of sweaty, dancing bodies to find a place more secluded.Perhaps, Victoria should stop doing whoever and whatever she wants to do. She always messes it up. She should stop this.But not yet, not tonight.She wants Max.





	1. Cranberry and Tequila

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria is very angry. Also, very drunk. She takes a much needed step outside of the party only to come in contact with a different, college-aged Max Caulfield. Of course Victoria is immediately drawn to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy!
> 
> (Uh, just so everyone knows, this IS NOT the second story in the Strange Love series.) I was having trouble finding the right thing to write and ended up just typing up a whole new short. As a writer, I personally feel more comfortable with writing adults engaging in the *clears throat* usual adult behavior. So we have college aged Max and Victoria here meeting face-to-face at a college party.
> 
> **AU in where Max and Victoria both survived the Dark Room, Arcadia Bay wasn't destroyed in a storm, and Chloe is alive out there. They're in their second year at an art Uni. I guess that's kind of the down-low on this universe.
> 
> Anything goes.
> 
> Including the two of them tied up with one another in a more hot and heavy way. If you get my drift. So if these kinds of stories aren't your cup of tea, maybe read all the dialogue and skip those parts? LOL
> 
> This is as close to a hot and heavy fic as you will ever get from me, so enjoy everyone. (Sorry, but I still love adding character padding and dialogue content to hotter stories, HA HA). 
> 
> TW: LANGUAGE, SEXUAL THEMES, DRINKING/DRUG USE

* * *

 

**

Chanel lipstick smudges all over a pale freckled neck. Just like she wanted.

Surely there would be bruises spread beneath the soft skin tomorrow, but neither party bothered with the thought of tomorrows at this point and time.

Why would they? What would be the point?

_Will there even be tomorrow?_

_“When you’re young, tomorrow seems so far away.”_

Or nonexistent.

Unreachable, unobtainable, unbelievable: the concept of tomorrow.

If the day after now never came, Victoria Chase wouldn’t bat a single lash.

Quivering, chilly bodies pressed against a rolling, vibrating laundry machine. Knees pushing against legs. Grips of hands shifting up and down shivering, excited sides.

_Exploration._

Victoria Chase has done many things in her life, but this… this was a first.

Laundry detergent, the scent of soft cotton.

Or was that _her_?

Victoria couldn’t tell. It was intoxicating either way. She was fucked up. That she knew.

Why else would she be here now?

_Why else… no other reason whatsoever…_

So she told herself.

“Are you...are you sure this is something we should...do?”

The question was asked so softly, so quietly. Her breath smelled of a peppermint gum and frat beers. The brunette pushed Victoria away gently with the palm of an apprehensive hand to her shoulder. A hand that told her _‘I’m not sure you want this’_.

And maybe, Victoria wasn’t sure, maybe she didn’t necessarily want this, but she wanted and needed to feel anything else right now.

_Is that fair?_

Her face tightened in disgust.

_Who gives a fuck about what is fair?_

As far as she was concerned, the world didn’t care about what was fair, so why should she suddenly care now?

Victoria eyed the girl whose hips she had pinned against the rattling washer. She could feel the vibrations through her. The way her blue eyes looked back up at her, it buzzed her insides in more ways than she could ever intelligently explain.

“I want you to shut the fuck up and kiss me, Caulfield.”

And that was Victoria’s answer on that. No soft explanations, no gentle ease into it all, just a saliva dripping request for the hipster pinned against her hips.

* * *

 

_**TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLIER** _

**

 _“What the fuck!?”_ she gasped for breath through trembling, intoxicated lips.

Her hand clenched tightly to a drink-sticky doorknob to the door of a house filled with strangers. It held her upright, stabilizing her shaking knees. The heels were not helping in the least. The world was still tumbling around her.

_What the fuck, what the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK!_

“ _Vicky_ , baby, I-,” he started, eyes wide, clutching a thrown-aside hoodie over his exposed lower half. His stomach rippled with heaving breaths.

A redhead with _‘holy fuck!’_ eyes scrambled from her knees and quickly wiped at her smudged lipped mouth with the back of her hand.

It was enough to make Victoria Chase sick to her stomach.

The rattling bass of music from below her feet against the wooden, creaking floor of the house unnerved her. Jacob’s pale, shocked expression sickened her. The fidgeting of the unknown fucking redhead in a tight black dress standing in the corner of his bedroom hurt her.

And then she felt it all at once. Along with a deafening siren whirring at the inner of her ears.

_Anger._

_Embarrassment._

_Confusion?_

_...why?_

The questions hit her so squarely in the chest, her feet stumbled backwards.

Jacob clutched the hoodie to his lower half and jumped up, his face contorted into a guilty grimace and a rising panic bubbled beneath. His blonde hair was messy from the wandering hands of the red head, it was so obvious, it made Victoria want to fucking scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted the whole party to know what happened. To hear her screaming inside the bedroom of her bullshit, pencil-dicked, now ex-boyfriend would give her intense pleasure.

She wanted him to pay.

Her corner lip faltered out of a pleasurable, torturous smile when Jacob took a step forward with lousy, sheepish eyes. His hand trembled where the hoodie kept his junk hidden.

Victoria smirked.

“Get _fucked_ , Jacob.”

She grabbed the gross, liquor soaked doorknob and stepped back, swinging it into a forceful slam.

As she stomped her way past bodies, blurry faces, the loudly singing drunk fucks tucked away into the corners of the house, stuffed into hallways, hunched close to flirt and chat, she realized she was the one who spilled drink on the doorknob.

She was holding a red cup.

_Oh, yeah._

Her balance was too fucked to stomp off and chug a shit drink all at once, she noticed as she lifted an arm to bring the cup to her face, her elbow whacking a stranger in the face.

She heard them let out an _‘ow’_. Victoria didn’t bother to stop or apologize.

Ears were ringing. Her ears. Still.

Jacob’s eyes, so different than what she was used to seeing, darker, hungrier, unlike him, flashed into her vision and she stumbled, catching the railing of the steps.

She leaned into it, her stomach folding over it, fingernails digging deeply into the wood of the banister, holding her steady. Victoria didn’t even realize her lungs were heaving, like her heart was going too fast and her lungs, a step behind, tried to keep up. Her eyes burned fiercely and she wished a hole would swallow her up now, just so she wouldn’t have to deal with this shit.

“Oh, _god_.” she wheezed from the banister.

Her golden locket necklace swayed as she stared down at the movement of combined bodies below. Dancing, grinding, touching...

_Blue lights flash, green, yellow, red…._

It synced with the music.

She heard a voice, “Vicky!”

Her heart made a leap and she pushed herself upright and used the banister to guide herself down the steps quickly. Her heels thankfully cooperated.

The last bit of sober energy, used.

She’d rather Jacob fall into that proverbial hole so he would disappear for fucking ever.

_He should break both his legs on the way down._

Her feet hit solid, flat floor and she knew she made it to the first level of the house.

So many bodies pressed together. A cloudy haze hung over the air in the house as strobe lights flashed in rapid intervals with the loud music. She felt her legs wobble slightly and she gripped the arm of a tall stranger to steady herself and squeeze by.

Ears rang louder, more violently and she needed to get out. To escape the intoxicated, hazy bodies of students bumping against each other. The smell was nauseating: sweaty, smokey, hoppy scented breathing in the steamy party house.

Spots of anger blinded parts of her vision.

She needed a fucking cigarette. She couldn’t remember ever needing the calming buzz of one more greatly than this moment.

Victoria’s shoulders bumped against strangers’ and nobody bothered to use any fake politeness in apologizing at house parties like this.

That was what she used to like about parties, everyone was mostly honest. Pump someone with toxins and they were sure to show the world exactly who they were inside.

_Fuck Jacob._

Her stomach made a violent twist in her gut and she shoved her way past two tall guys kissing up on each other in the doorframe to the kitchen.

Victoria blinked heavily and attempted to concentrate on the door handle beyond the kitchen. Her saving grace, her way out.

“Hey, Vic!” Someone called out to her and she didn’t bother to turn around. She didn’t care and she didn’t need someone she knew to see her in this state.

She slowed the fast pace of her tilted walking and chugged the rest of her solo cup. As she walked past the overflowing trash can, she crunched the plastic cup in her fist in a surge of fury before chucking it to the floor.

_Who gives a fuck? It’s Jacob’s house._

The door knob was so close, her hand reached for it and she slammed it open to step outside into the chilly New York winter air.

As soon as the cold air blasted into her face, it overwhelmed her. She was certain that was why people sometimes drank outside in the cold, it helped sober them up. A true smack to the face of angry idiots.

Sober though, Victoria was not. She had been stupid as fucking usual.

_Maybe if you get him drunk enough tonight, he’ll fuck you._

Big fucking loss on that one.

Victoria suddenly wished she had another mixed drink for her abandoned, crushed solo cup. Perhaps she was being too dramatic for throwing it to the floor a minute before.

Shoulders shivered against the tingling, icy air as her arms rubbed up and down her exposed flesh.

“And you wore this stupid ass dress? For what?” Victoria mumbled to herself as she made the most inelegant drop into a plastic chair outside on the wide porch. A few people gathered in the far corner from where she sat, sprawled out, smoking what smelled to be a blunt.

Victoria was jealous. She wondered if she should turn on her charm and try to steal one away from those skater looking guys.

_No._

She shook her head and the world tilted around her again.

Now, all she wished for was not to be fucked, but to be sober. She didn’t want to get sick.

Jacob’s guilty, pale face crept into her mind and it angered Victoria so badly that she wanted to let out a scream.

_No, not sober._

The idea of being sober at this point in time also sounded like the scariest thing on the planet. She didn’t know where her mind would go. Yet, being alone outside, staring at this wilted, dying tree in the backyard of her cheating boyfriend’s bullshit frat house seemed much worse than being in the sober mind frame.

Victoria wanted to fucking leave. Walk a hundred miles to get away from here.

Goosebumps formed higher on her exposed arms.

_Why did I come out here?_

Cigarette.

Victoria blinked and yanked her tangled purse around her body as she sat in the chair. Drunken hands trying to find the clasp on the bag was probably the third hardest thing she had to do today. Finally, her chilly fingers found the right place and she unclasped her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

She heard the boys off in the corner laugh and drunkenly talk with one another. Small tendrils of smoke billowed and disappeared above their beanie-capped heads.

Turning her head, this time very slowly, she eyed up an unopened, abandoned can of beer sitting on the table next to her depressive, plastic chair perch. After about ten seconds of staring at the can and zoning out, thinking of all the horrible things she will have to deal with in the morning, she blinked and sank further into the chair.

Huffing, Victoria swiped the cold can off the table and cracked it open. Taking a swig, she held back her desire to gag aloud at the horrible, cheap taste.

_Resulting to cheap frat-bro beer, Vic? Damn, you’re sad._

There was something very lonely about being heartbroken at a college party. A lot of people had probably been there, but with the way Victoria was feeling about it, she was certain she may be the first to ever really know.

It was dangerous. To be here. To pull out her cigarettes and her purple fucking lighter, to hold the shitty can in her hand.

_I should leave._

Thing was, Victoria was still too drunk to trust herself inside of a cab ride. She’d be damned if she saw what she saw and puke inside of a city taxi. She’d pay a three hundred dollar fee if she had to, just to drive the fuck away from here. From him. Though nobody could catch Victoria Chase getting sloppy vomit all over the backseat of a taxi. No sir. She certainly was not going to bring in this stupid dress that cost a grand to the local dry cleaners later in the week.

Brooding, anxious, heart thumping, she gripped tightly at the pack of cigarettes.

_Who the fuck even was that redhead?_

It killed her. What did that bitch have that she didn’t?

Jacob looked eager enough to fuck her.

_Why not me?_

Another long swig of the cheap beer. Another suppressed gag.

Victoria felt the lump in her throat jump and an unannounced whimper escaped her as her eyes began to burn with a fury of oncoming tears. That was how it normally would go.

Her hands shook as she sloppily set the can back on the table to raise the unlit cigarette to her lips. She paused for only a moment, considering the damage that cigarettes did to her perfected Chanel lipstick. A whole new shade, just for that fucker.

She picked out the best _‘fuck me’_ lipstick she could find, something that would leave trails down his flexed torso…

Shaking her head violently, instantly regretting it as spots bubbled in her vision, she caught herself before she threw her mindset deeper into the millions of confused and ungraspable thoughts that clawed through her brain on a constant basis.

Part of her wanted to pull her cold ass up out of this ridiculous plastic chair, charge back inside and scream in both of their faces, another part wanted to sulk outside in the twenty degree windchill for the dramatics.

Yeah, she knew she was that kind of person. She had grown a bit since fucking Blackwell. At one point, maybe, she’d have been planning his social annihilation by now.

_But..._

In all honesty, Victoria didn’t want to see his stupid fucking face again tonight. So she supposed she would hide until she sobered up a bit to make a stealthy exit. Sure, she’d be missed by her friends, but who gave a fuck? They were all too wound up in their own flirtations or drunken states to come and find her anyway.

Maybe freezing to death on a back porch was the best solution for her woes right now.

The door behind her squeaked open and she heard footsteps. She prayed quietly as her unlit cigarette dangled from her lips:

_Please don’t be him, please don’t be him...._

There was a quiet and polite clearing of a throat.

_Odd._

Not like Jacob to do that.

Victoria decided not to give a fuck and brought her trusty purple lighter up to her face and sparked it. She pulled on the cigarette and it began to cherry beautifully. She inhaled and felt better and worse all at once.

_Kind of how cigarettes worked overall._

She wondered what she looked like, if it was Jacob, she hoped she still looked as fuckable as ever, just to throw it in his wormy, goddamned face.

“Vic-Victoria?” A voice whispered from behind her.

Victoria Chase normally wouldn’t have turned around upon hearing anyone say her name, however, this voice was so extremely and disturbingly familiar that it caused a different sense of panic to rise in her already churning stomach.

Victoria choked on an inhale of her smoke and turned her head around to catch the face of the voice she _thought_ that it belonged to.

_Holy fuck._

And there she fucking was, in all her stupid hipster, art major glory.

“Max Fucking Caulfield.”

Her face was mostly shielded by the dark, but the hands in her jacket pockets, the skinny stature, the messy, now half-tied up wavy brown hair was impossibly Max.

_Max._

It had been over a year since they really spoke last.

And before that, her relationship with Maxine Caulfield was so impossible, so tumultuous that Victoria had no idea what else to even say to her other than ‘Max Fucking Caulfield’.

The two of them shared a horrific experience together.

_Don’t you fucking dare think about that… that dark room._

She swallowed a bit of bile back down to her upset stomach. If she thought too hard about _that_ too, she would surely fucking puke all over the edge of the deck.

“Are you okay?” Was all the brunette mumbled out. There was a touch of care in her voice, along with a lot of guardedness.

_Understandable._

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Victoria turned her head back around, not wanting to appear too interested in Max.

“We go to the same college, remember?” Max advised a bit roughly.

Of course Victoria knew that _shit_.

“Duh. How did you get an invite to this party?” She snapped back with bitterness as she took another draw.

A heavy sigh, “your boyfriend is roommates with one of my buddies.”

_Oh, yeah._

Victoria did her very best to not outwardly cringe at ‘boyfriend’.

And of course, these were all things that Victoria knew, but she wanted to make sure that Max felt as out of place here as she did right now.

_Is that why she’s out here?_

Perhaps she did feel out of place already, escaping to the porch just like Victoria.

“Parties aren’t your thing. I’ve never seen you at one of Jacob’s parties.” She snorted loudly.

Victoria felt Max shift around behind her, just outside of her vision.

“I know. I promised that I would come to this one. My friends never stop grilling me like a goddamn steak about being a shut-in.”

It appeared that Max was trying to make a self-deprecating joke.

_Yep, still Max._

Victoria was suddenly finding herself bored with the usual crudeness of her high school act. They were both in college now. New problems, new friends, a bit of a new style overall.

_Well, I’m still in designer and she… she is in what exactly?_

And Victoria couldn’t remember what exactly Max was dressed in so she shifted her body a bit to catch a look at Max standing under the backdoor light.

_Hmm…_

Max’s warm breath coiled above her and disappeared over the yellow tinged light of the back door. Victoria’s eyes traveled downward and she began to coyly smile. Readying her face back up, neutral, she viewed what she could see of this college aged Max Caulfield. It had been a while after all.

Dressed in ratty, black converse shoes, distressed dark skinny jeans with a splattering of blue paint on the right leg above the knee, a light-wash blue denim button up beneath a heavy looking leather jacket, she appeared...different. When Max finally took a tiny step forward and the light brightened up her face, Victoria almost gasped.

_What._

Victoria was confused as fuck.

_How? How._

Max gave Victoria a signature lopsided, shy grin and bounced on her toes, probably for warmth and the nerves.

Her messy brunette hair shined from behind due to the outdoor light. She looked so ridiculously different here and now, like a soft voiced ethereal savior. The embodiment of everything Victoria wished she could be sometimes.

_What a fucking night this is turning out to be._

Forcefully looking her over, Victoria’s brain clicked in places the differences in Max.

The matured face, less soft and long, a bit more mysterious and chiseled. The girl’s jawline seemed to fill out well, her cheekbones accentuating her delightfully soft, yet masculine appearance. College did something for Max Caulfield, it really did.

And once-a-fucking-gain, Victoria Chase blinked and stared into the nervous face of her stupid white knight.

_Almost like looking up at her in the dark… Stop, Vic. Stop._

It was bullshit. _All bullshit_.

Max had been the one there with Victoria in the dark room that destructive night back when they attended Blackwell Academy.

Drunk, sitting in a weathered plastic chair on the back porch of a college house, Victoria realized she never actually thanked Max for her attempts at checking in on her after the whole ordeal. It was easier for Victoria to pretend like it never happened to her at all.

_I’m a fucking asshole._

Somehow, Victoria wasn’t sure, but they were found in time. Madsen, the mall cop with a bad mustache, found them _in time_. It didn’t make sense, none of the timeline from that night, especially when Victoria threw in the factor of Max, but they got out in one piece. Just like Max said they would.

Max felt the gaze of Victoria’s long drawn scrutiny and shuffled off to the left of her, walking over to the banister of the weathered and old porch. Her breath trailed behind her like a dancing mist.

“Even in college, I’m still a shut-in.” The way it was said hinted that Max held a tiny, sad smile on her face. Victoria couldn’t see her face, but she wished she could.

“Holy shit, do you have an undercut?” Victoria almost dropped her burning cigarette into her thousand dollar lap.

Max turned around quickly then, feeling self-conscious and rubbed the back of the short fuzz of her nape. Victoria could not tell the true color of her eyes.

“Uh, god. Yeah. Wade convinced me to do this. He actually did it himself last week. Said it’d complete ‘the look’. Although, I’m not really sure what _look_ he means.” Max shrugged and leaned over the banister further to check out whatever was below.

_The usual Max Caulfield shit._

Although, Victoria couldn’t help but understand the exact look Wade had meant. Victoria knew Wade well enough. Wade was one of Jacob’s roommates and friends. She never figured Max Caulfield was cool enough to be close with the junior, Wade Greene. He was the ultimate, hot bisexual fine arts major with a concentration in painting.

Maybe Max Caulfield really was completely different.

She wanted to know.

She needed to.

_Does she have a girlfriend?_

Why that thought popped into Victoria’s mind, she didn’t know.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Victoria inquired, not really caring about using much of a filter on her drunken ass mouth anymore. Too much had happened tonight to matter.

Max tensed visibly in the shadows of the deck and turned her torso to catch a glimpse at the smoking and broodingly wasted Victoria. Her face was nearly unreadable.

“No,” Max answered honestly, although a bit tensely.

“Boyfriend then? What, are you not queer anymore?” Victoria asked, flicking some ash from the end of her cigarette onto the damp planks of the deck below.

Max raised her brows and blinked a few times. “I mean, yeah, I’m still...obviously, I’m still pretty much into everyone.” Her face contorted, eyes squeezed shut for only a moment, “Er, that sounded weird. I mean, yes, boys and girls are both... _ interesting  _ to me still.”

Victoria nodded and the world swam in shadows a bit around her. “Interesting.”

Max chuckled at this and turned around, hands still hidden deep in the leather jacket pockets, as she leaned against the porch railing with a new found coolness that Victoria never clocked in her before.

“Fuck college,” Victoria blurted out as she pulled deeply on the last burning bit of cigarette, blushing slightly.

Max shivered and reached up to pull her small ponytail down and the chocolate waves fell around her face.

_ Now, that’s a bit more like the Max I remember. _

Though her entire vibe in college was subtly different. Victoria would deem this a visual upgrade for the geeky hipster for sure.

Shivering in the cold and feeling her lips pucker in the dry coolness of outside, Max caught sight of Victoria’s shaking shoulders and immediately began to shuffle her own arms out of her leather jacket.

Victoria’s heart began to race again, as if it had ever stopped, and she opened her mouth.

“What are you doing, Caulfield?” Her eyes were lowered, suspicious.

“You’re cold. Take this,” Max tentatively took a step forward. “Can I put this around your shoulders?”

_ Hmm, asking for consent. _

Victoria found this to be a breath of fresh air.

A coy grin.

“Do whatever you want.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOOOOO
> 
> I'm excited for everyone to read the rest of this short. Their tension is so good, I cannot believe it. I'm having more fun writing the tension than any of the sexier aspects. (Both are fun to write though). 
> 
> Tell me those thoughts/comments so far, I hope you like where this is eventually heading... ;)
> 
> The more y'all bug with me comments, the faster I promise to post an update on this.
> 
> MISS YOU ALL!! Hope your lives are going okay! Happy Pisces season!
> 
> Tell me what you think of college Max and Vic.
> 
> (Also, I want to tip the hat to Cof and Todd from tumblr with their super awesome visuals of older Max and Vic that certainly assisted in the imagery of college Vic/Max. Here's a cute drawing by Todd [HERE](http://tovart.tumblr.com/post/183073104715/tovanori-february-patreon-request-chasefield-i) if you want to see).
> 
> Gotta Blaze,
> 
> Cas


	2. real coy, Caulfield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria is drunk on the back porch of a party house. Max Caulfield's presence causes a shared memory to pop up of them both days after the Dark Room incident back at Blackwell.
> 
> Victoria also suspects Max is a forever-virgin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! Here is Chapter Two.
> 
> Again, this isn't a part two of the Strange Love fic, just something I wanted to try based off of a house party idea. Different AU. Max and Vic both survived the Dark Room, Chloe is alive, Arcadia Bay didn't get destroyed.
> 
> ALSO, thank you so much to all my friends who left reviews/comments/kudos. I've been having a rough time lately, so I seriously appreciate any comment. Thank you for taking the time.
> 
> TW: Alcohol, sexual tension, language, adult party themes, I mean are any of you still reading this TW anyway? HA.
> 
> Enjoy!

**_“Do whatever you want.”_ **

It comes out a bit more like an innuendo than she meant, but Max seemed unfazed.

Holding the jacket out and making her way over to Victoria, Max gently and delicately laid the heavy jacket over Victoria’s quaking shoulders. When the soft lining of the jacket touched Victoria’s bare skin, it tingled deeply. Unable to help herself, Victoria inhaled the scent of the jacket and she instantaneously discovered two things:

Max wore a woody, clean scented cologne of some sort and that she must have been drinking too due to the smell of shitty beer mixed into the scent of leather.

“Did you spill alcohol on this?” Victoria asked, nose crumpling as Max stepped out from behind her.

“No, but someone else did. Kind of crowded in there,” she scoffed.

As these things went, a wave of crushing despair at what had just occurred with Jacob inside hit her head on beneath the warmth of Caulfield’s jacket.

_Everything comes and goes in waves…_

Victoria couldn’t muster up a reply at the moment, so instead she leaned over and grabbed another cigarette out of the pack with shaking, clunky fingers.

She watched Max’s thoughtful face stare up into the wintery night sky, swirls of heat dancing in beats of breath above her. The golden porch light illuminated her so well in this way, like her own personal visual halo of sorts.

Victoria realized Max was giving her a little bit of privacy here and there. Existing beside her but with enough space to keep Victoria comfortable. How she was able to read her so well, even this subtly, was astounding.

In her current state, Victoria couldn’t help but wonder if this was all a very strange dream and that maybe Max was just a representation of a real life, walking, talking hipster angel in her mind’s demented state.

_Oh, Jesus. Get a grip._

Max shifted her eyes here and there towards Victoria’s face. Finally, she dipped her chin down after analyzing the stars or something and turned her face around to lock eyes with Victoria.

_She still stops and takes time to look at stars?_

A ridiculous notion in Victoria’s opinion.

“Do you want me to take you home?” She asked seriously, but gently enough to not stir up a rude reaction from Victoria.

Victoria chortled and lit the second cigarette, her mind already buzzing from the previous nicotine blast. She found herself drawn to Max in her ethereal, lightened state.

It interested her greatly, how different and alike they really were. Both hiding away on the back porch during one of the biggest parties this semester, brooding in the winter cold. One wearing designer makeup, the other a simple layering of mascara at most.

Two similar souls from different worlds.

“In what way do you mean, Caulfield?” Victoria asked, a sly smile forming at the corner of her mouth as she blew out a foggy cloud over red stained lips.

_What are you doing, Vic?_

Victoria really, truly did love watching Max Caulfield squirm. She knew what she was doing, she thought.

Instead of squirming, Max raised a singular brow and gave a hesitant grin.

“Seeing as you have a boyfriend and are… straight, I guess it’s the one where I take you to my car and drive you back to your dorm to sleep this off.”

Feeling a surge of boldness and honesty, she chuckled darkly, pulling on the cigarette. Her eyes never broke away from Max’s.

_That wasn’t an answer I expected._

Under the newfound warmth of her old high school enemy’s jacket, she found the gall to be fully honest. The new buzz of beer in her liquored stomach was also certainly helping.

“That, really, wasn’t the kind of ride I was hoping for tonight.” Victoria exhaled in smoke and smiled, albeit sadly.

Even in the harsh shadows of the night, Victoria could see Max’s cheeks flush a pink color.

A surge of curiosity spread in her gut. Perhaps, it was more than curiosity.

“Also, fuck Jacob. I caught him and some redheaded bitch going down on him upstairs in his room. I hope they both get their fucking blowjobs.”

She says it with such poison that Max takes a step back and leans against the bannister for support again. The pink in her cheeks are gone, replaced by wintery paleness. Max was too smart to know that there was no joking tone in Victoria.

Max opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and slammed her mouth shut again. Victoria wanted nothing more than to hear Max’s reaction to her own display of disgust and anger.

She wanted Max to be upset for her, anyone to be even a fraction of as upset and disturbed as she was.

She needed somebody to understand.

“Jesus Christ,” Max decided to say in response.

Victoria dropped her forearm in shock, cigarette forgotten. Her eyes broke away from Max’s. The foreign leather jacket slipped from her right shoulder and her clumsy, cold hands pulled it back up.

“That’s all you got?” Victoria barked in a crude laugh.

Max shrugged her shoulders, yet they hovered near her ears. Victoria remembered that she was no longer wearing her jacket and was probably freezing.

“I would never, ever do that to my partner. It astounds me. Is that what you want to hear?” Max asked softly, with an undulating irritation, not at Victoria, but at the whole situation Victoria must be going through.

It was nice to hear.

“Say more,” she breathed, wanting Max to berate Jacob and slander him for her.

She was too drunk and volatile to do it herself, if she was being honest. There was no way in fucking hell that she was going to go on an angry rampage and possibly cry in front of this new, unsettlingly attractive Max Caulfield.

Max inhaled deeply, unsure of what to say, but after a few seconds, her shoulders relaxed back down and she turned around fully to face Victoria, arms crossed over her small chest for warmth.

“Okay.” She started uncertain. “He’s a fucking scumbag. I don’t get it. He had you of all people to be with. I mean, you’re a little...icy, but you’re fucking stunning. Every room you walk into you _own_. Any person you want, you _get_. You have so much talent. You picked that asshole, out of everyone, and he runs off and gets his thing sucked off by a random party goer? I’m sorry, but that’s absolute fucking garbage. He is absolute garbage and you’re better off without him.”

A swelling surge of glee bubbled in her gut at hearing the disgruntled disgust in Max’s normally soft voice. The bubble of glee even made it to the corners of her lips where they pulled upward into a dark grin.

She gave a grand inhale and stepped closer to Victoria. “Does he know...about you know? Your past.” Max gave a vague wave into the air before tucking her hands back under her arms for warmth.

Victoria knew exactly what ‘past’ Max was referring too.

“Yep.”

“And he still...did that to you?”

“Yep.”

A beat.

“Fuck that guy. I mean. He doesn’t deserve to… he doesn’t deserve the right to uh, fuck you, if that’s what you were talking about earlier.”

Victoria paused the lifting of the cigarette to her mouth and pondered for a moment.

_She’s right. He doesn’t deserve the right to fuck me._

She realized that she had zoned out for a bit longer than normal and brought the cigarette to her lips. The edge of it was already tinted in Chanel red.

“A lot more brash nowadays, huh, Caulfield?” Victoria smirked over at the hovering and fidgety brunette.

Max giving a heavy deadpan look, sighed. “A lot of shit changed me, I guess.”

And Victoria, again, understood what shit she was talking about.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s good. Works for you. I’m glad you’re standing up for yourself now.”

Max’s face softened and her lips held the ghost of a smile. “I still don’t always stand up for myself.”

Victoria nodded, entertained. “Same old Max then, huh? Only more mysterious and fashionable, a _little_ bit more tough.”

Taking a quick look over her own ensemble, Max made a ‘ _hmph_ ’ noise through her nose before pulling herself up to sit on the railing of the wooden deck. Her feet swung in a childish manner and Victoria felt her cheeks somehow grow warm in the cold.

Possibly, it was the beginning of frostbite. This type of reasoning worked for Victoria.

“Okay, so I showed you mine, how about you show me yours?” Victoria said through an exhale of grey smoke.

“My what?”

“I mean,” Victoria couldn’t help but let out a bark of a chuckle, “I told you my stupid issues. What’s yours?”

Max’s legs halted their swinging motion as her mind must have begun to race. Maybe it was rude to demand that Max reveal something about herself. It had felt like ages since they were in high school, when it truly hadn’t been too long at all.

“Relationship stuff? Well, I dated this one girl for a bit last semester. I liked her a lot...like a _lot_ and she couldn’t really handle the baggage of what I have going on, I think. My little quirks began to irritate her. It’s not fair to assume everyone can deal with how I am.”

Unable to control her facial reactions, Victoria turned up her nose and she was certain her face looked the way it did after she smelled something terrible.

“That’s bullshit. Everyone has some kind of shit going on somehow. Anyway, your quirks are what make you who you are. Max Caulfield, the only person in the world who takes the time to check in with the fucking stars. We all have our weird shit.”

Max chuckled, letting some of the tension escape her.

There was a question Victoria wanted to ask so badly and she knew her filter was completely gone at this point. She was feeling very brave tonight.

“So did she pop your cherry?” Victoria asked teasingly, with a dash of concern.

Max blushed pink under the light of the backdoor again and Victoria realized how prominent some of her freckles became when that occurred.

“I guess so.”

This answer did truly surprise her. She figured the graphic t-shirt wearing Max Caulfield would be a virgin forever. Then again, the way Max was looking now, Victoria could very well assume girls were certainly beginning to take an interest towards Max.

It was art college after all. And if she had to be forced to admit it, Max looked a bit hotter.

“Obviously, my face doesn’t do a great job at hiding my thoughts when I’m drunk, so I am a little surprised by that.”

Max made a mocking flinch reaction. “Ouch, Chase. Did you expect me to be a virgin forever?”

“Actually...yes.” She answered truthfully. Her mouth opened and the words tumbled out before she could stop it, “Though this whole mysterious, hot, art student thing you have going on probably does wonders for you in the dating pool with girls, hm?”

Max blushed again and turned her head away to watch the marijuana smoking skaters loudly high five each other from down the way on the porch.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Max mumbled.

The gathering of guys made drunken lunges over the deck and Max watched them curiously as they laughed and walked around the side of the house to disappear into the dark.

Victoria looked her over again.

Max’s jaw clenched in some far off thought, head turned away from Victoria, and her features did wonders in this sharp, yellowish lighting. Victoria wished she had her camera to snap a shot of this whole vision, just so she could look at it later and prove to herself that Max was actually there with her.

_I’ll be damned. Max Caulfield did actually get really hot. I guess she was always cute before, but now?_

Victoria flattened her facial features back out and grabbed at the beer can on the table, making a bit of a noise as she nearly knocked it over with her lazy hand.

Max turned to look at her then and approached Victoria quickly with a look of gentle worry in the act of swooping up the can.

“I’ll take that, thanks,” Max said in a soft but direct tone before making her way back over to the banister.

Feeling slightly more sober than she did ten minutes before, Victoria inhaled and pulled herself upward out of the rickety plastic chair. She had absolutely no idea why, but she wanted to be a bit closer to Max. It was odd, two lonely souls hiding out from the party in the harsh lighting of outside, needing the company of one another in the cold. There was such a gravitational pull about Max overall that Victoria’s feet were making decisions for her.

_Plus, she totally just stole my beer and I want it back._

When Victoria walked up to the rail where Max perched thoughtfully, Max visibly shivered. An alien feeling of concern washed over her. Afterall, she was the one who had Max’s jacket.

Victoria’s toes felt like pure icicles, but she didn’t care. At least the cold was so overwhelming that it was something less terrible to feel currently.

“You stole my beer,” Victoria mumbled darkly.

Max’s attention seemed to click back in place with the presence of Victoria in her personal space, she turned her head and looked down at Victoria, her legs began to swing again. The soft, downcast smile that tugged at Max’s pale lips churned something in Victoria. She couldn’t place what it was just yet.

“I know, but I don’t think you need any more.”

“You can’t waste a beer, asshole,” Victoria grumbled lightly.

“Fine,” Max chirped back before bringing Victoria’s beer can up to her lips, taking a large swig.

Victoria sucked the front of her teeth in a humored and annoyed laugh.

_Real coy, Caulfield._

Max let her tiny smile fall into a serious face.

“Do you need me to get you anything? There’s a 24 hour pharmacy down the road, about two blocks from here. I can go pick you up a pedialyte or gatorade or advil if you need me to and when I come back I can take you home.”

As Victoria looked into her eyes, she knew that Max Caulfield would absolutely walk two blocks in the cold at 11:30 at night to pick her up a drink and pain killers for her high school bully simply if Victoria asked her to. She would do it in a heartbeat because Max was that kind of person.

_A way better person than me._

The energy between them was something new, an odd combination of old history and new discovery. It was hard to turn the mean reactions off.

“That’s...What? No way. Ugh, you’re disgustingly really sweet, Caulfield. Your ex girlfriend is a fucking moron for ending it with your hipster ass.”

Victoria looked down, world wavering slightly, but not as dramatically as before, and realized the cigarette between her fingers had burned out. She flicked it off into the yard. Max caught sight of the display of littering and grimaced.

“What? It’s Jacob’s fucking house. He can kiss my ass as far as I’m concerned.” Victoria defended herself upon seeing Max’s face.

“Yeah, I know. You’re right,” she said, still eyeing the orange, crumpled end of the dead cigarette.

The two sat in silence for a moment, Max outwardly getting slightly more ansty as the seconds ticked by. Tipping the rest of the beer into her mouth, she gave Victoria an apologetic look before sliding off the railing and rushing down the rickety three steps to the lightly snow covered grass to where Victoria’s lipstick stained cigarette lay peeping up through the snow.

As she bent down she started, “Okay, I’m sorry. Littering does really bother me. I tried to let it go, but…” And plucked the cigarette from the snow and shoved it into her jeans pocket.

Normally, Victoria would have found this display from Max to be annoying, but there was a hint of gentle charm in it. The broken girl that couldn’t touch automatic film cameras anymore due to her traumas, but still picked up other people’s litter to make the world the tiniest bit more beautiful.

That was something Victoria Chase surely admired.

Max clambered her way back up to the deck and found a place to stand next to Victoria. She was pleased that Max got a bit closer than she expected she would. They both turned and leaned against the rail, staring out into the small backyard, the music from the party muffled behind them.

There was a shift change then between them, like the years of adversary style conversation and hostile remarks were forgotten and they were two new people meeting for the first time at a college party.

Victoria wondered if maybe they were, as she peered at the side of Max’s inquisitive face from her peripherals.

Max’s hand tapped rhythms mindlessly against the weathered wood of the railing and Victoria couldn’t guess what Max was hearing inside her own head.

For some reason, the quiet jittered Victoria, something she wasn’t used to when being alone with a person, but she needed to say something. Anything to explain to Max why she was such a mess in this current state.

“So I had this ridiculous notion earlier before the party. I know Jacob and I dated for two months, but that whole time, he only seemed interested in receiving... _you know_. It was weird, if anything tried to go further, he’d stop. I thought that maybe I wasn’t hot enough for him or whatever, not fuckable enough, so I pulled out this tiny black dress that I haven’t worn yet, got myself as fuckable as possible, and showed up to this party. I drank about five things of tequila and some shitty juice, went to find him and there he was. Boner and all halfway down the throat of a random bitch I’ve never seen before.”

Max tilted her head to peer at Victoria. Her eyes seemed slightly harsh.

“Like I said before, he’s a scumbag.”

Victoria sadly chortled and leaned closer to Max for warmth. Their shoulders rested against each other. Victoria couldn’t remember ever being this close to Max…

_Wait…_

The whole world paused then. Froze almost as solid as her toes in those god forsaken heels. Her body physically tensed as she recalled something she must have blocked out the few days after the whole…

_Dark room._

Victoria shakily exhaled as the memory blasted into the forefront of her memory.

_Drunk. So fucking drunk on bottles of wine hidden in her Blackwell dorm._

_Crying, despair, feeling dirty and sick._

_The bottom of the shower. Water turned ice cold._

_The softest of knocks and the gentlest of voices asking her if she was okay._

_Max’s blue eyes, concerned, black circles surrounding oceanic eyes that appeared ancient._

_The sound of the water being turned off. A soft towel wrapping around her shoulders._

_Whose towel?_

_Blacking out completely and coming to laying horizontal and wrapped in her soft, blue bathrobe. Blankets tucked around her body. In Victoria’s dorm room. Wall lights twinkling delicately._

_Max’s sad, blue eyes filled with concern. Beyond that, an equal if not greater despair within her._

_What was she doing in her room? Why was Max there?_

_Tears, incoherent mumbling._

_Max handing her a fresh, opened water bottle, looking vulnerable and serious._

_Max._

_Victoria reaching out for Max’s hand as she tried to turn away. To leave? No, Victoria wanted her there. To stay._

_To stay with her._

_A gentle, needy tug at her hand again._

_Max mumbling, uncertain._

_Morning. Bright sunlight hitting one side of Victoria’s face. Waking up._

_Max._

_Max wrapped protectively around Victoria._

_Over the comforter. Using her own sweater for warmth over her bare arms._

_Why didn’t she get under the covers with Victoria?_

_Max sleeping, looking more peaceful than she had in weeks._

_Messy brown hair._

_Smelling like clean cotton and distinctively Max._

_Falling asleep again._

_Warm. Very safe._

_Waking up alone, dazed, headache._

_No indications of another soul._

_Alone._

_Bouts of vomit._

Victoria’s breathing rapidly increased and she felt shaken to the core by this flashback. Blackouts were easier to remember when blitzed.

“Max?” Victoria said with a question so small, she wasn’t even sure if it was her own voice.

Max didn’t speak but turned her pondering face to let Victoria know she was listening and with her.

“Did you… a few days after… _you know_ , did you help me?” 

By the way Max’s eyes slightly widened, Victoria could tell she knew what she was asking.

Her heart thumped beneath her tiny black dress so heavily she was worried Max could see and hear its pounding.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have stayed but you kept asking me too, so I did. I left as soon as I knew you were mostly okay.” She disclosed earnestly with a hint of that ancientness she remembered in the flashback.

All Victoria could say back at this revelation was, “And you didn’t think to climb under the blankets with me to be warm?”

Max seemed to sit on this comment for a moment before giving a soft, airy chuckle.

“I know how you feel about me as a person. I couldn’t just invade your space like that.”

Victoria looked up at her with surprised and gentle eyes. “I think I would have preferred you to ‘invade my space’ with me beneath the blankets.”

Max’s eyebrows shot up beneath her messy brown hair and Victoria laughed.

After a moment, Max’s fingers began to anxiously tap a beat again against the rail and Victoria wasn’t sure how long she could stand hearing it.

_What is she thinking?_

Normally, Victoria could guess what people were thinking about her, but this undercut style, art student Max was different. Guarded, calculating, with hint of quiet suave.

Without fully thinking it through, she slid her hand across the deck rail and wrapped her cold hand around the back of Max’s. Her fingers tucked comfortably into Max’s cool palm. The incessant drumming stopped instantly. Tension rolled off Max for a moment before she appeared to breathe again.

“If you want to hold my hand, Victoria, all you have to do is ask.” Max joked at her, more of her teeth showing probably due to the nerves.

Victoria understood because she felt them too.

“Thank you,” she breathed between quivering lips.

Max froze for a moment before looking down at the way their hands were, enfolded on the deck of a college party house.

“For what?”

Victoria shrugged and bumped her shoulder playfully into Max’s.

Something she never thought she would do with Max Caulfield.

“For being you. For being kind to me. Even after everything that has happened to you.”

Max seemed to straighten her posture a bit and with the way Max was looking at Victoria, it was painfully obvious that nobody had ever told her something like that before.

It was almost as if she was bewildered to hear someone thank her.

A weird twinge occurred in her heart and she was just as confused by it as she was by the way Max was looking at her now. Max had the strange, powerful ability to look at Victoria with those goddamned blue eyes and make her feel like the entire world wasn’t complete shit. That there was at least one person in it that genuinely cared about what happened to other people. The ever-anthropologist, watching, observing, mentally taking notes on everyone she met, just so they knew somebody else cared.

_Christ._

Max seemed to relax after being thanked and she gave Victoria another lopsided, thoughtful, gentle smile. Her hand came up quickly and fixed some stray hairs on Victoria’s head of pixie hair that were billowing in the wind and creeping into her green eyes.

The way Max’s hand felt gently in her short hair, even for that second sparked something in Victoria that she couldn’t ever remember feeling before. A jolt. An electric buzzing that threatened to crawl from within her and motivate her into action.

_What kind of action?_

As Victoria perused the tired, yet gentle looking face of Max Caulfield, her freckles prominent in the cold of winter against her pale skin, her thick, yet short eyelashes adorning the deepest of cobalt blue irises, Victoria very well knew what kind of action.

Victoria desperately reached out for Max’s fleeting hand and needily pulled it against her cheek. Victoria discovered the roughness of Max’s palms when they were cradling her own soft cheek.

Almost sheepishly, she bit her lip and looked into Max’s perplexed eyes.

Max being _Max_ , seemed to take in the tone of Victoria’s eyes and her face relaxed into almost an unspoken understanding.

Maybe it was what they both needed.

Max blinked a few times, opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it. Her thumb ran along Victoria’s high cheekbone before pulling away slowly, perhaps reluctantly.

Victoria felt her chest begin to ache when it was gone.

Pulling herself back up onto the rail, Max settled comfortably, or as comfortably as one could in this weather, and looked down at Victoria thoughtfully.

“Why did you thank me?” Max questioned delicately. “You could have just pretended like you never remembered, but instead you thanked me.”

Victoria inched closer to the side of Max’s leg at her perch on the railing. Her arm brushed against her leg as she looked up at Max.

“Because you’re better than everyone else, goof,” she gave a singular nod.

Her cheeks felt heated then, maybe she was being too honest right now. It was hard to tell if it was the alcohol that caused her to act like this, or being around closely to Max. Which one was the drug to get her to spill things like this so easily?

Max’s eyes changed and it was almost as if Max was seeing her differently.

Feeling already impossibly brave and scared shitless at the same time, Victoria slowly moved her arm to set her hand gently on Max’s knee cap. She settled her hand over the blue paint stain on Max’s jeans, heart pounding in her chest and echoing in her ears.

Max didn’t tense or shove her hand away, more so stopped the antsy swinging of her legs.

Licking her lips nervously, Victoria darted her eyes away, gaining her confidence and looked back up at Max’s thoughtful expression.

Victoria could feel Max analyzing and attempting to figure out Victoria’s thoughts.

What were her thoughts?

_I want to be close. I need to be close._

Locking eyes with Max, to keep a check on her expression, she inched painfully closer. The adjustment from beside Max to in front of her, nearly between her kneecaps was so painstakingly slow and nerve wracking that she forgot to breathe normally.

Max’s brow twitched in slight confusion when Victoria slid in front of her, now staring directly down at the blonde in the skimpy black dress, she nervously exhaled.

_I don’t care. I just want this._

The tiniest of voices screamed at the back of her head telling her to stop.

_I can’t stop._

She slid her other hand onto the top of Max’s other knee and she blinked a few times, suddenly feeling as nervous as Max looked.

Victoria realized she probably had to say anything, something. “I…” and the thought dropped away as soon as Max raised her brows in attention.

“What?” Max nervously asked, her eyes bouncing between Victoria’s hands on her knees to Victoria’s searching face.

_You were doing well with the honesty thing a few minutes ago._

Max leaned the slightest bit forward and rested her hands on Victoria’s shoulders in a nervous, comforting manner. It was if she wanted to make sure Victoria was comfortable before herself.

Always the selfless protector.

_“Let me kiss you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a jerk. I know. I'm aware. I promise things will get hotter and heavier in chapter three. What is the point of a fic like this if there isn't a bit of teasing and back and forth first? Maybe that's just me. :p
> 
> I loved writing Victoria's flashback scene where Max took care of her. TBH, I'd write a whole one shot of that night if I had the time. Hmm...
> 
> Is Max going to get a hickey? I don't know! Check back next chapter. Add a notification for this story so you know when the next one is being posted.
> 
> I'm a poor Uni grad, please feed me with comments/thoughts/your fave song right now. Really, I'll take whatever. You folx are genuinely fun to chat with.
> 
> BTW, ever want to send me an email? I have one for writing purposes: badwolvwrites@gmail.com
> 
> Gotta Blaze,
> 
> badwolv


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